The Oklahoma Mesonet is a world-class network of environmental monitoring stations. The network was designed and implemented by scientists at the University of Oklahoma (OU) and at Oklahoma State University (OSU).
The Oklahoma Mesonet consists of 120 automated stations covering Oklahoma. There is at least one Mesonet station in each of Oklahoma's 77 counties.
At each site, the environment is measured by a set of instruments located on or near a 10-meter-tall tower. The measurements are packaged into "observations" every 5 minutes, then the observations are transmitted to a central facility every 5 minutes, 24 hours per day year-round.
The Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS) at OU receives the observations, verifies the quality of the data and provides the data to Mesonet customers. It only takes 5 to 10 minutes from the time the measurements are acquired until they become available to the public.
10.15763/dbs.mesonet (All Mesonet Products)
10.15763/dbs.mesonet.standard (Standard Mesonet Observations)
"Mesonet" is a combination of the words "mesoscale" and "network".
In meteorology, "mesoscale" refers to weather events that range in size from about one mile to about 150 miles. Mesoscale events last from several minutes to several hours. Therefore, mesoscale weather events are phenomenon that might go undetected without densely spaced weather observations. Thunderstorms, wind gusts, heatbursts, and drylines, are examples of mesoscale events.
A "network" is an interconnected system.
Thus, the Oklahoma Mesonet is a system designed to measure the environment at the size and duration of mesoscale weather events.